Christmas Time's a comin'...

I really like how much everybody here in England is into the Christmas spirit. Everyone is very jolly about it, and the younger children in our school have put on partly interactive shows just to spice up every one's feelings. The Year 3 production was a wonderful, slightly modified version of the Nutcracker, which was executed beautifully. I didn't get to see the Years 1 and 2 show, but I imagine that it was wonderful as well. Above is our recent trip to an ice skating rink in Cambridge.

Not just our school, but the town has caught Christmas fever as well. Christmas lights were hung up along Trinity Street quite a while ago now, and all over England there have been church services celebrating the beginning of Advent. All the stores have sections just for Christmas-like things, and I find that it is impossible to talk to anybody without drifting to the topic of Christmas. Especially since it has been snowing lately, just like the stereotype of a Christmas morning.

Cycle Heaven 2

It has been very interesting going through all the stages of biking to school. Here is the list of steps I have taken so far:

1. Finding your way to school - I was still getting used to getting to school, trying not to get lost
2. Finding different routes to go to school - so far I have found 5 different ways of getting to school
3. Biking home from school with sports kit and without basket - I eventually figured out that I could plop it on my handlebars. I felt awkward with people looking at me as if I'm some weirdo
4. Biking home from school in the dark - Daylight savings time made biking home from school a lot more difficult. My dad bought some lights for my bike, though
5. Biking home from school in the dark with my sports kit - This one's a bit tricky. I discover that my sports kit doesn't block my light or my sight at it's position on the handlebars

All my problems so far have been resolved - but who knows what will come next?

This isn't Cambridge anymore

Last Saturday was the start of a one-week vacation for our school, so we decided to go to the Lake District, "the most beautiful corner of the country". And it certainly was. Our schedule was usually as follows: have breakfast at the B&B, which was bacon, egg, sausage, tomato, baked beans and mushrooms (YUM!), have a hike in the morning, have lunch, have a hike in the afternoon, and collapse on your bed (or cot, if you happened to be me) and you would instantly become just as good as any old guy knocked out cold. Here are some Lake District pics:

Eagle eye: A view of the town we were staying in, which was called Ambleside

Winging it: An interesting bird we found in Beatrix Potter's garden, thought to be a robin

Falling water: This was the first time we saw this waterfall, yet the second time we took this hike

Heading downhill: The last hike of the week was with my sister's friend (left), who has a house in the Lake District. This shows her talking with my visiting grandmother.

Here, the food was exceptionally decent, the hikes were spectacular, and the views were just indescribable, but Ambleside was just a bit too crowded. Most people seemed to be families with kids, which was not so in other crowded places. Turns out that all of the schools in England, every single one, they all have the same vacation times as the other schools. A lot of those families must have wanted to go to the Lake District, because at our first night, all the restaraunts were jammed and we just squeezed in at a place called Lucy4, which had a very cheesy menu. Some of the sections of the menu were called Carni-four and Herbi-four. (get it?)
My grandmother was confused about Carni-four because she thought that you could chose 4 things from that section, but it was really just a pun for carnivore. Anyway, we reserved for another restaurant so we wouldn't be stuck at Lucy4 again. Surprisingly, we did not see too many other hikers on the trails, so that was nice. Hope we get to visit Lake District again!

A New View of Cambridge

My grandparents are visiting us in England right now. It's nice to see your relatives again, but there was a bonus as well. My grandfather, Carey, was a student at Christ's College for 2 years, so he is an alumnus of Cambridge. If you are an alumnus and you would like to come back to Cambridge, you may, with some special privileges. With his special 'former alumni' card, he could take the rest of us could take a tour of some colleges - for free. So we went strolling about King's College Yard and we saw the famous Bridge of Sighs from 50 meters away (if Carey was a St. Johns pupil we could have been on it), and one of his friend's friends (who happened to be a fellow of King's College) took him to the King's College Chapel for a church service. We got to sit in seats that very high standard people would sit in because we were the guests of the fellow of King's College.

The service was great. The priest was very good, and the material was more interesting than most church services I have been to.

But the cherry on top of the whole thing was the choir. Carey said there were contests for boys all over England to be part of that choir. The sound was absolutely amazing. It really made me think of how the human voice could be not just a plain old voice, but an instrument.

After the amazing service, the friend's friend (a.k.a Dr. Keith Carne) was asked by Mom how old the boys in the choir were. He said, "Maybe from ages 8 to 18." Then Mom asked about how if they started from age 8, would they keep singing until 18. "No, they just sing until their voices break." Everyone must have been stunned at this, because throughout the tour of the dining hall of King's College and over the college bridge, no one spoke much (or at least not as much as they had before). However, it was still quite a nice day to have.

Bath and Stonehenge

On Sunday the 19th of October, we took a tour of both Bath and Stonehenge. It was quite a lot of fun to see some famous places in England for a change instead of seeing all the museums in the U.S.A.

First, our tour guide drove us to Stonehenge. He said we would have 1 and a half hours of free time. He recommended that we take the free audio guide, so we did.

We had seen the site of Stonehenge as we drove to it, but when it was right there, 50 yards ahead of you, it was even better.

The audio guide was very detailed and gave you an excellent blend of history, architecture, and the special character of Stonehenge. It also explained the many different reasons that Stonehenge was built. According to the guide, Stonehenge could have been an early form of graveyard.

After our audio guide was done, we sat down and had some hot chocolate. Then, Dad and I explored the cow pasture near Stonehenge (his blog is at http://nmafpblog.blogspot.com ). When we got back to the bus, it was time to go to Bath.

We were about five minutes away from Bath when I caught a glimpse of a beautiful Georgian-style city on a lush hill overlooking a valley. It turns out that it was Bath. WE got about 1 hour of free time when we got there, which was mostly spent on lunch at a Parisian cafe and exploring the Roman Baths. Afterward, we thought we would not take a tour that our guide had offered us, and we admired the River Avon. But as we looked up at Pultney Bridge, we saw our guide's long curly hair and his face appear to be walking across the bridge. So we said, "What the hey, let's follow him." and so we did.

He led us to the north of the city to a place called the Royal Circle, which was a roundabout full of apartments that looked exactly the same (the whole city was made out of the same kind of stone). It looked like a palace, put it was really split up into different sections. We then walked on the the Royal Crescent, which was the same as the Royal Circle except bigger and semi-circle shaped. It overlooked a field covered with life-size painted pigs. ????? It turns out that they were being auctioned in that field to get rid of them. But why all the colors? Well, there was a story that goes:

Once there was a prince of a kingdom who was going to become king as soon as his father died. However, the poor boy had a mysterious skin disease that even the royal doctors could not cure. So, the prince was banished from the castle grounds, never to be king unless he was cured. So the prince wandered around some fields when he found a farmer. He asked the farmer, "May I take care of your pigs?" he was young and wanted to please, you see. So the farmer let him take care of his pigs, not knowing about the prince's skin disease. Soon later, the pigs had the strange disease too, and they started turning into strange colors, polka-dotted spirals, and every other pattern you could imagine. The prince was embarrassed at this, so he went to a nearby lake to wash his hands. When he took them out of the water, he was cured! He sprinted back to the castle and showed his father that he was cured. He became king and they all lived happily ever after.

The pigs in the field represent the pigs in the story. The town had made them, but they were getting in the way, so they were going to auction them off.

After that view of the weird pigs, the guide picked us up in the bus and we drove home.

Mushy Peas

When I have a bite to eat at school, like lunch, I sit and watch my British friends using some strange methods to eat their food. First of all, they always take stuff and mush it onto the back of their fork, especially peas. And pretty much 100% of the school does it, so I feel like some weirdo who just got warped into Britain from a planet that doesn't know anything about British eating habits.
Another thing is that they sometimes take everything on their plate and make a mixture of all sorts of stuff. Usually, I keep most of my food separated, so I find it quite disgusting to see my classmates putting their peas in the rice and the rice all over the bread with a delicious topping of onions. Yuck.

The Way of the Brits

What has given me my biggest thing to ponder about in GB is all the customs that the Britons have. At a pub, there is a so-called 'invisible queue' which is a line of who ordered their drinks first. To get in the queue, you have to rest your elbow on the bar, maybe with some money or the menu in your hand. When the bartender nods at you, you are in the queue. But that is if you are only going to drink. If you want to have dinner there, you can get the bartender's attention and tell him what you want from the menu.

When we have a rugby match against another school, the hosts usually have match tea, or a small dinner after the match to eat and socialize with the other team. But they are usually just when the visitors are coming from far away. For example, I had a match where we had to take a bus from St. Faiths (our school in Cambridge) to a school called Wellingborough, which is in the middle of England. After we lost 21-5 to them, we had match tea in a nice cafeteria (much nicer than at St. Faiths) and had lasagna.

The British are very big about their queuing habits. My dad read a book called "Watching the English" which is about the hidden customs/rules in England. Kate Fox, the author, experimented with how people would react by her cutting in line. She noticed that they looked quite angry, but that they were too polite to say anything about it. From my experiences in America, if you cut someone in line, accidental or not, they will say something like, "Hey, get back there," or whatever.

Overall, the British are much more polite-ish than most Americans, which makes life a lot more different in England.

A Day in London

On Saturday October 4th, I went to London to celebrate my birthday, which was the day before. It was quite interesting to compare Cambridge, where we are living, and London. The first thing that struck me was that London was almost completely empty of bikes. It was like they had gone extinct in the period of time it took to get from Cambridge to London. Also, the immenseness of the city made me feel more like a foreigner than I ever was. Everybody seemed to know exactly where they were going and when the thing was happening. We were stopping at practically every corner to look at the map. When we finally got home back to Cambridge, I felt much more normal as I sat down at our local pub and had a bite to eat.

Watch that English!

Another crazy thing about coming to England is all the strange words and phrases. My math teacher (they call it maths) says "Chop-chop, get along now!" if he thinks some of us are going too slow. I also heard some of my friends talking about large amounts of "quid", which was a slang word for pounds (as in money). My math teacher always talks about "getting those good marks" which meant "getting those questions right". Here is a list of American to British translations:

American ----------------------------------------------English

football -------------------------------------------------- American football
pants --------------------------------------------------- trousers
tape ----------------------------------------------------- sticking plaster
treadmill -------------------------------------------------running machine
game -----------------------------------------------------match
friend -----------------------------------------------------mate
underwear ------------------------------------------------pants
trunk -----------------------------------------------------boot
soccer ----------------------------------------------------football
thanks ----------------------------------------------------cheers
custom (like custom software)------------------------------bespoke

Cycle Heaven

When I first came to Cambridge, I was told that it was quite flat around. It isn't just quite flat, it is really flat. There are rumors that floating around my school that tell you that you could walk from Cambridge all the way to Ely, a town about 5 miles away, and the ground level would not change by more than 10 meters. And in Cambridge's case, it attract cyclists like the Eiffel tower attracts tourists! My father was visiting the Cambridge railway station once, and he was going to take a look around the area. So he looked for a place to lock his bike. He went around the back of the building and guess what he saw. There was a huge amount of bikes, literally a sea of bikes, all of them belonging to people who were taking the train somewhere. It was only about half the size of a soccer field, but there were more bikes in it than fans at your average soccer game. I can't even imagine what the number of bikes per person rate is in Cambridge. Or how anyone could find their bike in that bicycle parking lot, for that manner. Cambridge was built for bikes.

Is it football? Is it people trying to kill each other? No, it's rugby

Rugby is the sort of sport that if you watch it for the first time, you get completely and totally confused. It looks like, from off the pitch, a mass of buff people pushing and tackling and kicking and ripping the ball from each other, as you can see. But today, I had to play the crazy game for the first time.
I thought at first that it was strange tackling complete strangers, but after a while, you get used to being crushed by these huge jocks. It's really just a more sophisticated form of Kill the Carrier, unless, of course, the Carrier is on your team. Some parts of it involve ripping the ball from your teammates' hands. Some parts involve throwing the ball down the middle of the scrambling players and hoping your team gets it. It's not the most gentlemanly sport, but it is quite a lot of fun.

School

The first few days of school here have been great. There are a lot more subjects in my school (St. Faiths) than the one in the US. My favorite subjects are Latin and Religious Studies. The sports are great too, with rugby, hockey, netball and soccer (football). The teachers are very nice too. I would recommend St. Faiths as a possibility for schools in Cambridge.

The Moment of Truth

That special day had come where we came (Finally!) to England. We came into Heathrow Airport on Friday night at about 8:30 pm. We had hired a car to take us to Cambridge, so it took an extra hour and a half to get to our house. When we were almost there, we were wondering what the house would be like, and if Mom would still be awake. When we came inside, we greeted Mom with lots of hugs and kisses, and then we explored the house. It was much smaller than we all expected. My sister, Lydia, finally asked, "Is this the hotel or something?" I laughed at this, but I understood her thinking. It didn't seem like the house we were expecting at all. We shared walls with the neighbors, and it was quite narrow. It extends in the picture from the blue door to the white paint on the second level. We bike a lot, though, so we don't have to stay in too often.

Coming Right Up!

In just a month, our trip will start. Our family is furiously packing all our stuff and getting prepared for England. Mom and Dad still need to get us phone service because all of the companies are trying to make us do these money wasting "bargains" when we just need a simple deal. It is really , really exciting that we're so close to leaving!

Surprise!

Most days in early June are normal for me. I wake up around 7:30, go to school, come home, have dinner. But after dinner wasn't so normal. My parents led me into the living room and told me that I was going to move, for a year, to a country across the Atlantic Ocean, to my surprise. England. At first I felt like they were lying, but then I looked at my parent's faces. They were serious about it. I cried for joy. I fired them tons of questions about it when I had calmed myself down. Then I went up to my room and thought about how I would miss all of my friends for a whole year. That news was probably the biggest news I had ever heard in my life.